Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The recent deaths of the students in the University of
California is a deep tragedy so much that every person who hears of it can feel
profoundly affected, and certainly these students loved ones deserve to be
respected and understood in a courteous way.Unfortunately, there are those out there who would use tragedy for their
own purposes, thus undermining the magnitude and vastness of this occurrence.In an age where the media sensationalizes
just about everything, people like me tend to be dragged into our own pool of
misfortunes from these events.Every
recent mass murder, whether in Oklahoma state, Sandy Hook, or Columbine, even
though valid studies show absolutely no connection to Asperger syndrome and
violent crime, and autistic people are more
likely to be victims of violence.And when autistic people are associated with these events by media
pundits, it simply increases stigma and violence against them.What parent, may I ask, or spouse, child,
sibling, niece, or nephew, would want their own suffering and grief to be associated
with violence and intolerance?Who in
this world would want to have guilt for their own grief over their
flesh-and-blood child or the like?

The
fact is that any repressed minority group, whether gays, blacks, or Hawaiians,
has been connected to violent crime.How
often have we heard of “a black man” who has robbed a convenience store or
committed a murder?Televangelist Pat
Robertson once said 99% percent of the world’s crimes are committed by gays
when they make up 1% of the world, and these proportions surprisingly enough were
used by Hitler to describe the ratio of Jews in the crimes committed.For autistics, these events include Sandy
Hook, Santa Barbara, and the Oklahoma state bombings.None of these speculations were by reputable
professions.They were by media pundits
who have perpetuated the assumptions of the average citizen.I have heard it argued that these
speculations are meant to prevent future shootings, but since the Sandy Hook
massacre, have these types of incidents stopped.Alex Plank, founder of the autistic social
network Wrong Planet wrote in response the Sandy Hook massacre that the search
for a reason that the search for the source of these crimes should not be the
search for a scapegoat.What’s more, why
are these “sources” always the ones who face higher levels of unemployment,
lack of education, and alcoholism than the general population, when neither
Elliot Rodgers, Timothy McVeigh, or the Sandy Hook shooter have ever been
diagnosed?

Giving
condolences and comfort to the loved ones of the victims is not the same thing
as searching for a scapegoat.Stigmatizing people with Asperger syndrome will not heal the pain and
grief of Cheung Yuan Hong’s, George Chen’s, or Weiham Wang’s loved ones, nor
will it give the closure they may desire or renormalize their lives.The deaths of these nineteen- and twenty-year
old students should never serve as a leeway for escalating current
life-threatening violence of living people with hopes and dreams and loved ones
like Hong’s, Chen’s, or Wang’s, and just happen to be autistic.The truly unfortunate flaw of many is that
the people we love are not always appreciated as they should be until they are
gone, and I hope that all people of this world will learn to truly appreciate
their loved ones that they hold dear, whether or not they are autistic.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

The fact is this: we all want the best possible life and
the same is something we would want for our children.For some children this may involve a para,
speech therapy, individual counseling, and other services.Unfortunately, many children are not given
what they need from society to develop to these heights the way others are and
when that happens, parents feel they need to be involved and often people with
the conditions of the children they advocate for our not heard.Many parents of autistic people and their
supporters have said that autistic adults are not good advocates for autistic
children.Some say they do not have the
same issues facing them that children do, can’t speak for the diversity of
everyone on the spectrum, that parents are better advocates as they care most
about their children, or that children wouldn’t understand their own situation
or that it won’t be relevant to their lives when they grow up.Yet if were honest, the clear picture is that
parents have been advocating for their children with autistics being almost
completely excluded in the process for over twenty
years, and in all this time, very little has changed in the availability of
autism services for the autism community as a whole.History, meanwhile, has shown that people
affected most by a particular issue have the power to change their
situation.Black Americans have
succeeded very significantly in reversing segregation laws throughout
America.Women have gained the rights to
vote, own property, and hold careers, while people with disabilities have been
given universal services and the Americans with Disability Act.Autistics similarly, can do the same thing
for themselves, for they have five advantages that (most) parents with autism
can make them a unique asset to (non-autistic) parents of autistic children.

Common Experiences

What
people ignore about autistic adults is that they have had similar experiences
as children.They have experienced
segregated education aversive therapies, bullying, etc.Many like me can remember what they had
trouble with in elementary school, where adequate supports were not available
to me.I remember better than anyone
what teachers and paras did, or tried to do for me, because I was there, and I
like many other autistic adults, who have for some reason or another, been in
segregated education for the reasons that we were unable to keep up with our
non-autistic peers on account of our different abilities.I have heard parents comment, through social
media and other forms, on how autistic people from autistic-run organizations
such as the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, the Autism Women’s Network, the
Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership, and the Aspergers Association
of New England, have been instrumental in giving parents information on autism
that they are able to use to help their children’s progress and argue with
legislators for adequate supports for their children.

Common Needs

As
an autistic person, I know what is stressful for me and what makes certain
tasks difficult to perform.As autistic
people, we know that being socially active can be difficult because the
planning can be stressful, whereas most neurotypical people I know would simply
assume I don’t want to get out and be social.We can also stress over changes in routine because we like predictability,
yet most people I know used to say autistic people were simply rigid because
they have not heard things from an autistic person’s point of view, but rather
professionals, who may be honest and trained, but do not experience life from
the point of view of someone who is wired as we are.This has changed somewhat, but a lot of
society still has yet to accept our perspectives.Autistics know on some level what distracts
or unnerves them, but often times do not know how to communicate it to others.

Common Future
Projections

Disproportionate
numbers of autistic adults experience underemployment (or unemployment),
divorce, substance abuse, crime, and poverty, all of which could be prevented
with early services and interventions.Autistic people are the ones most affected by discrimination, and
autistic adults, many with aging parents and with their understanding of their
unique needs and condition, are aware of what future struggles today’s autistic
children could experience with the right supports. Many have learned to compensate for their differences and have unique perspectives on what autistic children can do and can be taught to help live the best possible live

Common Social
Networks

Autistic
people are commonly parents of autistic children.Autistic adults such as John Elder Robison, Sharon daVanport, Jennifer O’Toole, and Bec Oakley have autistic children.Several of them are authors, bloggers,
executives, secretaries, and treasurers for material on and resources providing
information and services for people with autism.They have the same interest in their children
as one would hope for parents to have and the same insider’s view of autism
that autistic adults, with or without autistic children have.

Common Identity

Frequently
used rhetoric by autistic self-advocates is that one wouldn’t trust a civil
rights organization run entirely by white people or a feminist organization run
entirely by men.Autistic people like
me don’t just want to be tolerated but celebrated to for our unique
contributions to society, such as the inventions of Thomas Edison or the
discoveries of Albert Einstein, both of whom were suspected to have autism.Autism is more than just a medical condition for
us, but an essential part of who we are just like being Jewish or Greek.We do have to get services from our
legislators by pity, which is something that degrades and dehumanizes us all.We understand the need for supports because autism
is part of who we are, and it is not just about struggles but also strengths,
which autistic people have in fact, been telling the public about for
years.Autism supports, just like accommodations
for people with learning disabilities, help people like me work to the best of
our abilities, not our disabilities, so we can contribute to society in the
unique ways that others have before, something that autistics like me have
always identified with, what's more making autistic adults great leaders in advocating for autistic children.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

“Albus Dumbledore: Indifference and neglect often cause
more damage than outright dislike.” –Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

In
today’s culture of modern day political correctness, it seems to become almost
impossible to criticize anyone for prejudice, racism, sexism, and other bigotry
unless it is a premeditated, front-brained notion.What we end of with is that no one seems to
want to confront the ordinary prejudices of society and individuals that help
perpetuate injustice.We hear racism doesn’t
manifest in burning crosses and wearing brown shirts like it used to, but
inequitable and racial practices still persist even if a lot has been done to
combat that.No one hates women; they just
don’t always accept them as they would themselves.Immigrant communities aren’t called bad
outright, but just are associated with negative social and economic problems
often for simply enjoying the same social status as natural-born citizens.LGBT groups aren’t considered intrinsically
bad, but just aren’t considered entitled to respect and freedom the way
heterosexuals are.None of this rhetoric
wants to admit its uneven level of respect and dignity for others or to take
responsibility for their current plight.These attitudes are unfortunately seen all the time in the autism world
and people, particularly the privileged, dominant ones, want cudos for how far
they come without fair feedback on how far they have to go.

Injustice
isn’t just injustice.For many ethnic
and minority groups, their plight is the consequence
of historical circumstances and/or genocide, rather than the perpetuation
of it.For LGBTs, disabled people, and
women, inequitable treatment did not start this decade and may not have simple,
clear-cut origins, and have happened in virtually every culture and society at
some point.Civil rights struggles may
not be like a movie where there is one good side and one bad side, with
clear-cut villains such as Sauron or Voldemort, and obvious heroes such as
Frodo and Gandalf or Harry and Dumbledore.Oppressed view and treat different groups with the same lack of humanity
that their oppressors treat them and not everyone in these struggles are as
commendable as King, Mandela, or Gandhi.If I were to view discrimination as acts committed by clansmen, brown
shirts, or red guards, and fought by Gandhis, Kings, and Mandelas, I would have
very little case.The truth is that most
injustice is perpetuated by people somewhere in between these two types of
personas, who in any case, don’t respect other groups of people are equal in
their rights, presence in society, and way of being.The title of the article “The A-Z Om Guide”
refers to two things: one is how the various strands of autism prejudice are
numerous, just as are the sounds in the English alphabet, hence “A-Z.”The other thing my title refers to is that
while these various strands of prejudice may be varied, the differences on
closer inspection appear meaningless, in the same way the word “Om” is believed
by many Hindus to contain all the sounds of the world.Among neurotypicals (and self-hating
autistics) there are several ways of perceiving autism that, in the end, do not
amount to acceptance.

“I don’t hate you.I just
wish you weren’t different from me in this respect.”

Someone
could always say to a person of a different racial/ethnic background, “It don’t
hate you, the individual.I just wish
you had as light/dark/medium skin tone as me.”Similarly, autistics hear everyday, “I don’t dislike you.I just don’t like autism.”In
both these cases, we see the person saying these worlds has to hate dislike
something about the person that cannot be changed.

“I just wish you
were more like me because then your life would be better and/or easier.”

The
classic line of European colonialism that lasted for over two centuries was,
“We (the Europeans) need to bring Western civilization/the word of Christ to
the indigenous people so they can enjoy the benefits of modern
civilization/become civilized.”A line I
have heard fed to me before as an autistic by neurotypicals is, “I think if you
were neurotypical, your life would be easier/better.”Both of these lines assume that the
autistic/indigenous person is not capable of succeeding/being civilized without
the European/neurotypical’s help respectively.

“I should
accept/not judge you because you have to struggle against so much.”

I’ve
heard people say, when talking about the so-called Third World cultures, “I
guess we’d be like them if we didn’t have what they did.”This may sound tolerant, but instead it just
says to me that if Third World cultures had what we did, they’d be just like us.We characterize these cultures as living in
mud huts, being technologically ignorant, war torn, badly governed, or
uncivilized.We don’t see big cities,
laptops, cell phones, and politicians such as Nelson Mandela.Nor do we take into account the rich
traditions of food, music, art, and literature to come from these countries
such as Nigerian author Chinua Achabes’ Things
Fall Apart.In the case of autism,
neurotypical and other non-autistic people ignore strengths autistic people
have such as superior-working memory, 3D-drawing skills, graphic recall, and perfect
pitch of voice.

“I don’t hate these
people.I just don’t think they should
be allowed to do/given this.”

I’ve heard it said by people
that, “I don’t hate gay people.I just
don’t believe they should be allowed to marry.”We also hear, “I don’t hate women.I just don’t believe they should have a choice to abort a
pregnancy.”The latter one could potentially
seem much more compelling to me than the former.Certainly, depending on your belief in when
life begins, do not want a baby to be killed.However, this argument would be much more convincing if it weren’t for
the fact that politicians and political think tanks who say this openly support
bombing innocent civilians in another part of the world without a solid threat
coming from the area, or to execute criminals.

In a
similar sense more or less to both of these other examples, I’ve heard it said,
“People don’t hate people with autism.They just don’t want to see them be given the educational and medical
services that will help integrate them into society for this or that
reason.”All of these views deny someone
else the right to enjoy or benefit from freedom or accessibility the way they
do.

“We don’t deny
these people their rights because we hate them.It’s just a financial/economic issue.”

I’ve
heard people say that, “This society doesn’t look down on, devalue, or hate
autistic people.They just don’t want to
pay higher taxes needed to give them the same social advantages.”This logic has also been used to argue
against desegregation of America, equal health coverage for homosexuals, and
the decolonization of the Philippines.It essentially implies that autistics/ethnic minorities/LGBTs/indigenous
people are not as important as a fraction of the earnings of middle class
Americans.Currently the average
American makes $60,000 per year, while the average amount of dollars each tax
payer pays to fight the War on Poverty is $34.Middle class Americans, particularly white conservative ones, complain
about being bled dry by the War on Poverty.In the meantime, the average American taxpayer pays $870 dollars in
taxes to provide for corporate subsidies.World powers from America to Britain to China argue against greater
freedom and equality for their ethnic and religious minorities saying it is not
cost effective.In fact, government
studies indicate that every dollar spent on people with special needs as
children save $17 spent on them later in life.South African archbishop and social activist Desmond Tutu once said,
“When will governments learn that freedom is much cheaper than oppression.”

“I don’t hate these
people.I just don’t like how they cause
all these problems for us.”

This
is commonly said about migrants to the United States, particularly ones from
the Latin countries, most often in reference to taking jobs and services from
natural-born Americans.The “they took
our jobs” mantra implies three things: (1 That these jobs belong to
natural-born Americans, 2) That is as immigrants/Latin Americans that they are
taking jobs, and 3) That these migrants being given jobs makes employment
opportunity scarcer for natural-born citizens.(1 and (2 In the six years that I’ve been in college, both junior
college and university life, I see natural-born workers, many but not all
white, texting, web-surfing, talking on their phones while many of the international
and ESL student workers go out of their way to help me with whatever issue I
come to them with.Shouldn’t people be
given jobs based on their hard-work and loyalty to their company, rather than
their nationality or ethnicity, and (3 economists have pointed out for decades
that migrants come to the U.S. willing to work for less pay and harder work,
and both of these in turn save and make companies money, which actually opens up jobs because it grows companies.Meanwhile, equal health coverage for
homosexuals is criticized on the grounds that it would cost society more
money.This sort of thinking doesn’t
explain why homosexuals are denied benefits while others such redheads,
left-handed people, and Asians are not.

In
the case of inclusive education for autistic people, parents of typical
children have said they worry it will cause their students to get less
attention from teachers.In fact,
studies have indicated that disabled students in inclusive classroom settings
develop better social skills, school performances, and self-confidence that
would actually require them to need less attention from teachers, while typical
children in inclusive classrooms learn better leadership, problem-solving
skills, and empathy that allow them to work more on their own without a
teacher’s help.

“I don’t hate these
people.I love this one celebrity who is
from that group.”

We
hear, “I have nothing wrong with gay people.I love movies with Neil Patrick Harris.”Temple Grandin, in my opinion, has become Neil Patrick Harris for
autistic people. The fact that you have
appreciated something they have done does not mean you respect them as equal
human beings.Liking a celebrity from a
particular group does not mean that one believes that group is entitled to the
same rights and benefits from society.Comparing
autistic people to John Wayne, Michael Jackson, or Kurt Cobain just ignores each
autistic person as an individual.

“I must be like you
because I’m acting/feeling this unpleasant/inappropriate way.”

Individuals
with bipolar disorder will often hear their non-bipolar peers say, “I’ve been
feeling awful.I must be bipolar.”People with AD/HD hear their peers who can’t
pay attention say they must have their condition.I’ve heard people who were stressed over
getting their house remodeled or starting a new job say, “Oh, that’s my autism
acting up.”All these words depend on
stereotypical oversimplified notions of these conditions lack the understanding
societies need to accommodate them.It
would be like me saying, “I must be neurotypical because I can’t just ask a
girl out without droning on endlessly about our school work.”

“Underneath your
so-called differences, you are just like me.”

This
kind of rhetoric is frequently said towards transgender individuals, whose
parents say, “I still love you, but you’ll always be my son/daughter to
me.”A common autistic variant of this
rhetoric is, “Underneath your autism, there is a completely normal child.”Neither of these ideas accommodates to accept
these people knowing who they really are.Both of them suppress the individual’s own identity, which in turn,
makes it harder for the world to accommodate for their differences.

“I don’t hate these
people.I just don’t like how they do
certain things.”

This
“keep it in the bedroom” rhetoric is heard all the time in the autism
world.People say, “I just don’t like
how autistic people flap their hands/speak in monotone/lack eye contact.”To accept someone, you do not need to like
everything they do.You just need to
respect that they have every right to do these things without changing them,
just as I can accept neurotypical’s right to talk about trivial things such as
weather, or not know how to make operable a railway system or develop the
Silicon Valley. I don’t say, “I accept
neurotypicals, but…”To me, “but” means
that there is something to compensate for lack of prejudice, which in the end
is not accepting at all.Acceptance
means no ifs and/or buts.If you see
autism organizations that put forward any of these ideas when talking about
autism acceptance, be aware.Acceptance
means accepting autistic people as individuals who are equal in way of being,
rights, permanent belonging, and importance to society.

I have been practicing Buddhism for eight years now.For the first six years of that time, I read
several great Buddhist authors such as Robert Thurman, Jack Kornfield, Norman
Fischer, James Kullander, and others.Nowadays, I have grown disenchanted by American Buddhist literature, and
have hardly read any Buddhist book, except for poetry books, picture books, and
novels.Another thing that has
disenchanted me about American Buddhism is that it seems to be dominated
largely by people from older generations, and after years of reading and
collecting magazines such as Tricycle,
Buddhadharma, and Shambhala Sun, I think I found the
problem: most of the contributors in these magazines are older people.Not once have I seen in these magazines an
article written by someone in their twenties or thirties.Moreover, when looking at these publications
and Shambhala Publications Best Buddhist
Writing series, I notice that these author’s experiences don’t connect very
well to younger generations of Buddhists and potential Buddhists.I read chapters and articles on losing one’s
spouse to cancer, unhappy marriages, disillusionment with their professional
lives, aging, and other experiences that young people just don’t connect to,
however important they are.Many talk about
how they still suffer from time to time, indulge in bad habits, or feel
slighted by people.Many of them are
very bleak and confusing, and they never really say anything positive about
practicing the Dharma.I currently have
over a dozen Buddhist books in collector’s condition that I have never even
touched.Meanwhile, one of my books,
which I’ve had since my early teens, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, is held together
with loads of packing tape, with lose pages hanging out.To me, that just means it’s important to
me.Its contents are still accessible
and I still get hours of joy and inspiration from them and other books by
Tolkien.Before my disillusionment with
American Buddhist literature, I was lucky enough to come upon Buddhist
psychotherapist David L. Loy’s book The
Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy, which had
an amazing take on Tolkien’s The Lord of
the Rings.Since then I found a
renewed sense of enjoyment in Tolkien’s work as an artist, poet, film buff, and
Buddhist.Before I got the idea for this
post, I realized that yesterday was
Buddha Jayanti Day, the celebration in the Buddhist world of Buddha’s birth,
and thought that I ought to do a post (albeit a late one this time) for that
time, like I did with Autism Acceptance Month, and I thought I’d talk about
what it means to be Buddhist.Part of me
was struggling from having heard accounts from my fellow Buddhists (all of them
older) about what Buddhism and meditation hadn’t
done for them and part of me was wondering, “Why practice Buddhism?”Earlier I had come upon an article called The 10 Best Quotes from Middle Earth to Live By by Selina Wilken,and later I
thought back to the article and realized all these quotes share something about
what Buddhism does well for people, and that these have been true from all my
experiences practicing Dharma.While
looking at articles on The Lord of the
Rings quotes I found some that showed me what happens when one practices
the Dharma.

“A day may come when the
courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of
fellowship, but it is not this day.An
hour of war and shattered shields in the age of men may come crashing down, but
it is not this day.This day we fight!” –Aragorn

This quote was not from the
aforementioned article, but it did see that it made a good Buddhist point: be
in the present.There is no need to
worry about the age when mankind is shattered because it is not now.Similarly, we need not dread taking tests,
asking out dates, and learning to drive all the time because most of the time,
it is not now.

“All we have to do is to
decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” –Gandalf the Grey

This
gets to the heart of the Buddha’s teachings, for one of the most quoted
Buddhist axioms is, “Live in the present.”This simply means to put your hopes for happiness, love, and freedom by
what you think, say, and do in this moment, for it is precious, and once it is
gone, you can never get it back.Maybe
you’re a student in college at home for the summer, and know a desired
sweetheart who will be living off campus next year while you’re still in the
dorms, but hey, what if you knew now that she didn’t have a car?Then you may see her in the dining hall and
could hit things up with her, huh?

“If more of us valued food
and cheer and song above hoarded gold, this would be a much merrier world.”
–Thorin Oakenshield

(Spoiler alert) Thorin Oakenshield from Peter
Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy gets the ax
in The Hobbit, the part that is to be
covered in PJ’s third installment, yet says these beautiful parting words to
Bilbo on his death bed.Perhaps dying
made him see how meaningless and empty hoarded gold really is, but food, cheer,
and song on the other hand?Well, food,
that’s necessary to live, and cheer, well is that not our end goal in all
things?Isn’t everything we do, whether
getting our bottom lip pierced or holding out a box of Valentine’s box to your
love interest all done in the pursuit of something that will make you
happy?And song?Well, what does that
have to do with Buddha?Well it’s easy
to think in an age of gawdy pop music that music is tacky and commercial, but
most of the world begs to differ.Song
comes from within, and by coming up with songs, we can see what’s within. In
Senegal, West Africa, music praise the journey to God. The Dinka of South Sudan sing songs to
celebrate love or praise the cattle that their livelihoods depend on.In war-torn Somalia, songs are composed
around campfires celebrating heroes who committed brave and noble acts. And hoarded gold can easily translate into the
hordes of money possessed by billion dollar companies, such as Enron, Chevron,
and Haliburton.Oil companies deny
responsibility in cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, politicians bomb the Middle
East while protecting major oil companies, and the CIA overthrows
democratically elected presidents in Iran, Zaire (modern-day Democratic
Republic of the Congo), and Latin America (note oil has been called black gold).And isn’t the whole point of socially engaged Buddhism to help alleviate
greed, hatred, and ignorance-the three poisons in Buddhism-to make this world a
better place.

“It’s like in the great
stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger
they were.Sometimes you didn’t want to
know the end, because how could the end be happy.How could the world go back to the way it was
when so much bad happened?But in the
end, it’s just a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass.” –Samwise
Gamgee

A famous Buddhist saying goes,
“This, too, shall pass.”Breakups, fear
of driving, nasty professors all cause us stress but in the end we forget all
about them.Mentally handicapped people
find decent housing.Tragic losses make
people stronger and closer to the people around them.Life is about hanging in there until change
comes around, and when it does, we’re all still here.Through meditation, we’re able to see that
all challenges are impermanent, and we just need to see them through.

“Not all those who wonder
are lost.” –J.R.R. Tolkien

Sometimes we all go down the
wrong path: wanting a girl who’s completely egotistical, hoarding objects we
think have value to us, snack cravings before we go to bed.But we eventually our able to see that this
girl is very manipulative, that those things we collect aren’t always so
interesting, and that we can unwind in bed from the day without food.Yet these don’t stop us from truly living
because we’re in touch with our selves.

“It’s a dangerous
business, Frodo, going out your door.You step out onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no
knowing where you might be swept off to.” –Bilbo Baggins

Hobbits are particularly afraid
of going out their door, particularly beyond the borders of the Shire, their
home.They love creature comforts like
good food, an armchair, fireplace, and well-groomed gardens.Yet Bilbo Baggins discovers that when he
decides to take Gandalf and the company of thirteen dwarves led by Thorin
Oakenshield to reclaim their kingdom, going out into the nasty, uncomfortable,
and dangerous wild, he discovers that there is more courage and resilience in
him than he previously believed.This is
not to different from the story of the Buddha, who left his palace, sexy wife,
and creature comforts to try and live discover how all people could truly live,
into the wild, eating very little until he nearly starved to death, or the
alluring, obedient women and concubines that strutted around his palace, and
found that he was much happier and wiser now that he knew there was more to
life than his wild, sex-crazed, drinking, party life.Today in the West, we have several safety
blankets to help make us feel secure in our lives, such as our televisions,
cell-phones, professional lives, material luxury, and even religion to make us
feel secure in our safe predictable lives to the point where they almost
enslave us, and we begin to feel disconnected to all the people around us.With Buddhism, we can take work, money,
relationships, and technology with moderation so we can truly feel loved by and
connected to the world.

“But no living man am
I!You look upon a woman.” –Eowyn

This quote is delivered by
Eowyn, niece and surrogate daughter of King Theoden of Rohan, who sneaks into
battle disguised as a man after she is refused to be allowed to go to battle on
account of her gender, right after the king is mortally wounded and her best
friend, Merry the hobbit is critically injured by Sauron’s chief lieutenant the
Witch-King of Angmar.Going back to the
Witch-King’s beginnings, Sauron used the ring of power he gave his servant,
which he made so no living man could
kill him.However, he didn’t foresee a
woman riding into battle against him, so consequently, he left a major weakness
for his most valuable servant.While
Tolkien did not create a lot of female characters, he left one of the most
important acts to one of them.Similarly, are own differences, whether gender or otherwise, are capable
of serving this world to a greater degree.Companies often hire workers with Asperger syndrome for their ability to
recognize and perceive patterns.During
World War II, Navajo Indians gained a place in the war for the fact that they
could communicate with each other without the Nazis or Japanese being able to
listen in on their plans because they didn’t understand the Navajo
language.The Dharma can help us all
understand that while we all have our own unique differences, we are able to
use them to contribute to this world.

“It’s useless to meet
revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.” –Frodo Baggins

When people egg you on, you know
longer need to respond to them.The
former classmate who makes snide comments at you is really just jealous of your
success and is so immature that he thinks when you share it with your high
school staff that you’re out to get him.Snooty middle-age mothers engage victimize themselves for being
chastised for their charity which pays more money to its executives, and then
make snide comments when you tell them of more accountable charities.Yet you realize they just want to provoke you
into chastising them so they can continue to indulge in self-pity, and when you
don’t respond to them, they just look vindictive and snide and hurt their own
cause.

“It is not the strength of
the body, but the strength for the spirit.” –J.R.R. Tolkien

Selina Wilken elucidated this
quote best when she writes, “When all hope seems lost, Frodo and Sam do not
give up; Eowyn fights her way through a world of men; Arwen does not abandon
what seems lost; Faramir stands up to a rotten parent…”Haven’t some of us had to stand up for
ourselves when we are physically smaller, been a woman who had to move up the
ranks in a male-dominated profession, or pursue a dream when our parents or
family aren’t supportive.Yet we get
where we need to go anyway.Practicing
Dharma and meditation allows us to see challenge and adversity with compassion
and equanimity.

“Deeds will not be less
valiant because they are not praised.” –Aragorn

These days, pop stars, football
players, and reality show stars seem to get all the positive attention from
society, not to mention more money than teachers, doctors, and social workers
who put more of their lives and energy into fulfilling much more noble
pursuits.Yet for trainee nurses,
student teachers, and engineering students, this does not have to stop them
from appreciating and valuing their own hard work, for with the Dharma, one is
able to see things as they are, not simply as they are valued by society.

“Even the smallest person can
change the course of the future.” –Lady Galadriel

This quote may be in reference
to the physical stature of hobbits, who are smaller than other races, including
dwarves, yet it is a good metaphor for the potential for ordinary people to
make an impact on their own world and the world beyond.Groups of teenagers are able to save local
parks from being built over by chain malls, preteen girls are able to
successfully petition large corporations to cut down on their use of pesticides
and GMOs, and small groups of concerned citizens are capable of helping
mentally disabled men who are fired for their misbehaviors to be reoffered
their jobs.One who truly practices the
Dharma is fully capable of living in the face of challenge and adversity and
eventually coming out successful.For
when we practice the Dharma, we are able to be more proactive, humble,
resilient, peaceable, and adventurous people.Regardless of whether we are Buddhist or not, Tolkien’s work has some
great Buddhist wisdom, delivered in a universal, non-Buddhist package, by which
we can all live by.